Growing a Career that Gives Back
For Cliriska Hoffman, agriculture has always been about more than what can be produced from the land.
Today, as an Environmental Auditor working across the agricultural sector in Southern Africa, she works alongside producers to strengthen environmental management systems, implement Good Agricultural Practices and find practical ways to make farming more sustainable.
Her path into the sector began with an opportunity from MAD Leadership Foundation. MAD funded Cliriska’s Bachelor of Agriculture degree, giving her the foundation to build a career that brings together her interest in agriculture, environmental stewardship and her desire to make a difference.
Today, every farm she visits presents a different set of circumstances. But, for Cliriska, there is a common responsibility: producing food while protecting the natural resources that farming will depend on in the future.
That perspective has shaped how she approaches her work. An audit is not simply a check against requirements. It is an opportunity to help producers identify where change is possible and to see sustainability as something that strengthens the future of their farms, rather than simply another compliance obligation.
One of the aspects of her work that has made the strongest impression on Cliriska is the role women are playing in agriculture. She has seen women working as farm owners, managers, technical specialists and farm workers, bringing knowledge, care and resilience to the sector. She is particularly encouraged by a new generation of women in farming who are embracing innovation and looking for better ways to balance productive agriculture with environmental responsibility.
Cliriska is continuing that commitment to learning herself. She is currently completing her Master’s degree, strengthening the knowledge she can bring back to the agricultural sector.
For her, leadership is closely connected to that pursuit of knowledge and to what happens once you have it.
Leadership means never stopping the pursuit of knowledge and using that knowledge to empower others.
The scholar MAD once invested in has developed a career through which she is helping farmers become better custodians of the environment, while showing young women that agriculture, science and leadership are spaces where they belong. For Cliriska, that is what it means to pay the opportunity forward.
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